


A Place of Peace

by devilinthedetails



Series: A Hundred Reflections of the Elements [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Air Temple, Gen, Meditation, Peace, Sanctuary, air nomad culture, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Through Monk Gyatso's guidance, Aang finds a place of peace.
Series: A Hundred Reflections of the Elements [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881241
Kudos: 10





	A Place of Peace

Air Temples

Aang was five when he asked Monk Gyatso why they built temples high in the clouds instead of on the ground like the temples he saw when visiting Bumi in Omashu or Kuzon in the Fire Nation. 

Monk Gyatso smiled as they stood on a terrace staring out over a sapphire sky studded with cotton clouds.“The mountain air is clean and crisp, allowing our thoughts to be pure. Up here, we feel every gust of wind and become in tune with its music. We become free as the wind, detached from the world because we’re so far above it.” 

Soul Sanctuary

“Contemplate the idea of sanctuary,” Monk Gyatso instructed Aang as they sat cross-legged on meditation mats. “What does sanctuary mean?” 

“A place of peace.” Aang’s eyes were closed but he was envisioning the Southern Air Temple as he answered. “A place where nobody can attack us.” 

“Are you picturing a physical place?” asked Monk Gyatso. 

“Yes.” Aang nodded even if he knew his teacher couldn’t see the gesture through shut eyes. 

“You should transcend that thought.” Monk Gyatso’s voice was gentle as wind chimes swaying in a breeze. “Picture peace inside you, sanctuary of the soul, not the body.” 

Yangchen’s Shrine

The first time Aang visited the Western Air Temple on air bison back, he found himself drawn to a shrine dedicated to a statue of a woman with a face somehow familiar to him. Glancing at the plinth beneath the statue, he saw she had died three-hundred-thirty-three years before his birth. A shiver snaked down his spine as he wondered why she should seem so familiar to him. 

“That’s Avatar Yangchen, the last incarnation of the Avatar to be born an airbender.” Monk Gyatso came up behind him in a whisper of robes. “She was raised here.” 

Best in the Monastery

“I’m the best in the monastery at creating a ball of air and rolling around on it,” Aang boasted to Monk Gyatso after an afternoon watching his friends fail to build air balls capable of carrying them.

“You might be the only one in the monastery able to create a ball of air and roll around on it.” Chuckling, Monk Gyatso stirred up a breeze that lifted Aang’s robe so it hid his eyes. “Don’t let that make you too proud, however. Pride can blind our vision, and I can always humble you by kicking your butt at pai sho.”

Pilgrims of the Sky

“We’re called Air Nomads, but perhaps we should be referred to as Pilgrims of the Sky instead,” Monk Gyatso remarked to Aang as sunset bathed the Patola Mountain Range on which the Southern Air Temple stood in purple and mauve. “Whenever we travel, it’s a pilgrimage, Aang. All the people we meet and places we see are sacred in their own way. Remember that on all your journeys.” 

Years later, emerging from an iceberg into a cold world where Monk Gyatso dead and the Air Temples were destroyed, Aang remembered this, becoming a Pilgrim of the Sky with newfound friends.


End file.
